Improving the SNCB 1607 Vitrains (4)

Pantographs

I had bought a set of four LS Models pantographs for
CC 40100. One of them was to replace the one I had broken on my 1502
LSM. I thought that the others would be useful to me one day. Only fault:
among the three, there is no 15 kV panto whose bow should be wider
(22.4 mm). But as the 25 kV LSM bows are already too large
(20.5 instead of 16.7), it will not show very much.

First point to check: are the distances of the insulators the same?
Answer: yes! These insulators are not very pretty, besides, with many
moulding burrs.

Removal of fixing bosses

The pantos fixing bosses are 4 mm diam. I remove the greatest part
with a diam. 5 mm drill. Ideally, I should finish with a 4 mm
diam. cylindrical milling bit, but I don’t have one. To avoid using a
putty (I don’t like it!), I finish with a 4.2 mm diam. drill by
penetrating a little in the roof, then I put a 4 m diam. plastic card
pad, 0.25 mm thick, cut with a punch, and glued with Kibri model
glue, which, by melting the plastic, will somewhat fill the remaining
gap.

A bit of Humbrol paint, a mixture of dark matte grey No. 32 with
a little white No. 34 and a drop of blue no. 14 will do; the
painting will be polished after drying. The result (a) is not too
visible, is it? On the other hand, I see in the photo that it would be
necessary to fill the tapped hole, and to shorten the jack rod…

There is no difficulty in gluing the pantos to the insulators with
Kristal Klear. This gluing is weak, but better is detached panto than
broken panto!

Limiting the extension of pantographs

Here, we should not have drunk too much coffee: we’ll place a stop
to limit the extension of the pantos. A small rectangle of plastic card
0.35 mm thick, approximately 1 × 2 mm or less, blackened with
a felt pen for more discretion, is kept stuck by the stop of the main
arm, panto raised, and glued with a micro drip of cyano (mark b on
the picture above). Do not overflow, otherwise the panto may not be
folded anymore!

About cyano, I noticed something, but maybe I reinvented the wheel: a
drop on waxed paper, the kind used to protect double-sided adhesives,
remains usable for about ten minutes! It even tends to roll over like a
drop of water.